| Multidisciplinary cross-sectional research is a key driver of knowledge innovation and technological progress and serves as a major channel for the development of new medical sciences. This study analyzes international publications in the field of medicine in China, as indexed by the Web of Science database, covering the period from 1990 to 2022. Using bibliometric analysis and complex network analysis, the study examines the current status and trends of multidisciplinary research in the medical field. Furthermore, a Differences-in-Differences (DID) model is employed to explore the impact of merging medical schools into comprehensive universities and the establishment of new independent medical schools on multidisciplinary research in medicine. The findings reveal that, from a global perspective, the volume of multidisciplinary publications in the medical field in China has grown rapidly and even surpassed that of the United States by 2021, making China the leading country in this area. At the disciplinary level, cross-collaboration between medicine and traditional natural sciences, as well as emerging technological disciplines, is more prominent compared to collaboration with the humanities and social sciences. At the institutional level, significant differences are observed in the types and regional distributions of institutions engaging in interdisciplinary medical research, with comprehensive universities in eastern China playing a dominant role. Additionally, the merging of medical schools into comprehensive universities has significantly promoted the development of multidisciplinary research in these institutions, whereas the impact of newly established independent medical faculties has been less pronounced to date. |
